Quote:The best way to turn a losing team into a winning team quickly in the NFL is to be a trend setter instead of a trend follower.  I remember when the Vikings fielded Nate Burleson, Cris Carter and Randy Moss at wide receiver and nobody could cover them.  I remember the "Greatest Show on Turf" in St. Louis with Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk.  And we all know about the Legion of Boom.

 

The lesson is this:  The NFL is a league that is predicated on innovation.

 

What Gus Bradley was trying to do was copy what Pete Carroll did.  He failed for the same reason Pete did in New York and Boston.  Pete was trying to be Bill Walsh back then.  Bill Belichick was trying to be Bill Parcells in Cleveland, (although he did come up with the UFO defense.)  That didn't work out either.

 

Being a trend follower instead of a trend setter is one reason that teams fail in the draft.  It has to be done with a five year plan and you have to do it with next years draft in mind.  If you don't have a tenured scouting department, this is a liability.

 

What I think is interesting from the Jaguars point of view is that this was the deepest draft for defensive backs in the last ten years and they only took one very late.  Last year was the year to go get offensive and defensive lineman in the draft.  Jags drafted four defensive linemen, a shutdown corner and a swiss army knife linebacker with injury concerns.  Clearly, they expect to have a big year defensively.

 

What may be their Achilles heel again this year, is the offensive line.  I'm not sure how much could have been done about that.  Contrast this to what Seattle did in 2016  taking a tackle in Germain Ifedi, a guard in Rees Odhiambo, and a center in Joey Hunt and feeding Russel Wilson to the wolves behind the worst offensive line in football according to Pro Football Focus.  They played a rookie undrafted free agent, George Fant, at LEFT TACKLE for most of the year who had never played the position before at any level.  Will the big jump be from year one to year two?  I dunno.

 

If it is, I expect the Jags defense to be stellar, finally, this year.